THE WAY THE PLANNING INSPECTORATE
DEALS WITH COMPLAINTS
56. We were somewhat surprised at the proportion
of complaints which the Inspectorate find to be without cause:
out of the 1,872 received in 1998/99, 1,735 were rejected as being
'unjustified'. At more than 92% of the total, this does seem to
be a remarkably high proportion of complaints which are judged
to be without basis. We noted with concern the comments of the
Advisory Panel on Standards, which found in examining 42 'unjustified
complaints' that several cases "should have been treated
as justified because they appeared to involve clear errors",
describing these as "significant discrepancies".[90]
We are concerned about the misclassification of complaints
as 'unjustified' and recommend that the Advisory Panel on Standards
for the Inspectorate return to this issue in their next report.
We consider the use of complaints statistics as a target later
in the report.
57. The way that the Inspectorate deals with complaints
is at least partially dictated by the options available to it.
Not only is it unable to alter or amend a decision in any way
but any indication that a significant error may have been made
could lay the decision open to High Court challenge. English Heritage
described the response given to complaints as "intentionally
uninformative".[91]
We can understand the Inspectorate's reluctance to concede mistakes
in these circumstances, but this highlights the difficulty of
the Inspectorate being the adjudicator on complaints against itself.
58. In the evidence given to us, there was the unmistakable
perception that the way the Inspectorate dealt with complaints
was inadequate and left complainants largely uninformed and disappointed.
The Local Government Association told us that "If one complains
to the Inspectorate, there is, again, the black box effect; there
is no direct response from the Inspector who made the decision."[92]
The Rights of Way Review Committee emphasised that "complaints
are not treated seriously" and went on to note that their
members have "largely given up complaining to the Inspectorate
about poor decisions because the Inspectorate will not discuss
their concerns."[93]
Similarly, the South Pennine Packhorse Trails Trust describe the
response to complaints as follows:
"Because the Inspector's
decision is final, there is no point in complaining to the Inspectorate.
All one gets is the bland reply that the Inspector's decision
is final. There is no indication that the Inspectorate is prepared
to accept criticism or comment. The result is that we do not complain
- it is simply a waste of time."[94]
Representatives from the Royal Town Planning Institute
agreed:
"The public who complain do not really get any
feeling that they have had a clear response. The answer from the
Inspectorate is 'We cannot change the decision'. If the process
was more open and more transparent, possibly if there was an external
body doing it, there may well be more public confidence."[95]
59. These statements sit rather uneasily with the
declaration of the Chief Planning Inspector to us:
"We see complaints as
an important element in trying to maintain that reputation [of
professionalism]. We use complaints and encourage people to complain
if they are unhappy and we try to learn lessons from them. We
try to be as open and transparent as we can, increasingly so.
Over the last five years we have sought to be more open, more
straight forward, more honest about what we do, to publish the
journal and so on, to try to make it clear to people how we operate,
how to complain, how we deal with complaints, all of those things."[96]
60. Other comments by the Chief Planning Inspector
appeared to show a complacency about the number and nature of
complaints. Given the sheer number and range of concerns expressed
to us about complaints to the Inspectorate, we found the Inspector's
attitude a little disturbing. In particular, we were unconvinced
of the merits of the argument that, because there is always a
'loser' in a planning appeal, one is more likely to receive complaints.[97]
It can equally be argued that the increased likelihood of the
losing party making a complaint is balanced out by the reduced
likelihood that the winning party will not complain. Further,
believing that year-on-year increases of 7%, then 9% during the
last two years are the result of a greater willingness to complain
seems a dangerous assumption to make.[98]
The complacency seems to be present through the ranks of Inspectors
also: it is perhaps telling that one Inspector told us that he
was " not aware that anyone is unhappy with the way that
complaints are dealt with."[99]
61. Many people perceive the Inspectorate to be responding
inadequately to their complaints: that the handling is completely
internal and that the Inspectorate is being cautious in its response
to complaints appear to be contributory causes of the dissatisfaction.
The Human Rights Act 1998 may have implications for the mechanisms
and we consider the merits of having an independent body to deal
with complaints later in the report. However, in advance of any
structural changes to the way that complaints are handled, the
following recommendations should be implemented immediately to
improve the handling of complaints. The attitude of the Inspectorate
to complaints and complainants in practice is inappropriate and
unjustifiably high-handed. Although the Inspectorate has limited
options for dealing with complaints, there can be no excuse for
the Inspectorate not admitting where it has been at fault, or
not giving a complete response to a complaint. We recommend that
the Inspectorate work to establish a better attitude to complainants
along with greater transparency and openness in responding to
complaints.
62. There are also some concerns about the length
of time taken for the Inspectorate to respond to a complaint.
This is particularly important since any High Court challenge
to a decision must be made within 6 weeks. Last year, APOS noted
one example in which the Inspectorate did not respond to a complaint
until after the 6 weeks period had expired.[100]
We recommend that the Inspectorate be set a target of responding
substantively to all complaints within 14 days. It should keep
a register of the cases in which it fails to achieve this target
along with details of the reasons for failure. The Advisory Panel
on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate should examine this
register as part of their annual reporting procedures.
Quality Control
63. The Planning Inspectorate makes use of a range
of measures to monitor and improve the quality of its work. These
include:
- monitoring all decisions by new Inspectors for
a period;
- annual evaluation of Inspectors' Inquiryholding
skills;
- sending Inspectors on training courses from time
to time and to an annual weeklong course for virtually all
Inspectors;
- reviewing a sample of all Inspectors decisions
'de novo' from written evidence, assessed for factual accuracy
and adequacy of reasoning;
- conducting customer satisfaction surveys;
- timeliness targets;
- analysis of complaints, plus acting on mistakes
to ensure they are not repeated;
- the test that 99% of all decisions issued should
be free from justified complaint;
- the test that 99% of the annual intake of cases
should be free from justified complaint about the procedural aspects
of cases;
- investigations by the Advisory Panel on Standards
in the Planning Inspectorate.
There seems to be little doubt that the Inspectorate
has an earnest and largely effective approach to ensuring that
its work is of a high quality. The most high-profile measures
of quality assessment are the timeliness targets and the test
that 99% of decisions issued should be free from justified complaint
and it is the latter which became a particular focus of our inquiry.
64. Although the Inspectorate has consistently met
the 99% target, witnesses were generally agreed that it gives
little clue as to the quality of the Inspectorate's work. Even
the Advisory Panel commented:
"we have consistently
pointed out that as a complaintsoriented target it does
not actually measure or identify defects in the quality of the
Inspectorate's service. Moreover, as a numerical target it is
sensitive to changes in the propensity to complain on the part
of the Inspectorate's customers".[101]
The Chief Planning Inspector also noted the inadequacy
of the 99% target but told us that many unsuccessful attempts
had been made to find a better measure of quality performance.[102]
65. The most critical aspect of quality for the Inspectorate
must be the quality of decision making. The 99% test does not
distinguish complaints based upon the decision of the Inspector
from complaints about the handling of inquiries. Further, as we
have already noted, a 'justified complaint' may simply signify
a misspelling or another simple, but relatively unimportant, mistake
by the Inspector. The limitations of the 99% test are also apparent
from the Inspectorate's own internal checking process which, from
a representative sample of cases, found that around 5% of cases
could have been subject to justified complaint, i.e. 5 times greater
than the proportion of actual justified complaints received.[103]
This shows conclusively that the 99% test is essentially a measure
of the visibility of errors and people's propensity to complain
and its correlation with quality must be considered a limited
one.
66. Although witnesses generally agreed that the
quality performance measures were inadequate, few put forward
alternative suggestions. The Council for the Protection of Rural
England suggested that measures should aim to assess the contribution
of the Inspectorate towards achieving sustainable development.[104]
Although we are entirely sympathetic with this aim, we consider
that the job of the Inspectorate is to uphold planning policy,
rather than focus on one or other of the Government's policies.
67. Leaving aside the merits of the 99% target in
measuring quality, its use is also limited because it is applied
solely as a headline measure of the total work of the Inspectorate.
Given the range and variability of different types of inquiry,
along with the priorities and specialisms involved in the Inspectorate's
work, there may be considerable merit in using a finer grain on
the 99% target and applying it to at least the 12 main types of
case work and also breaking it down by type of procedure (written,
hearing or inquiry). This would enable any trends or problems
in particular aspects of the Inspectorate's work to be spotted
at an early stage. For example, rights of way inquiries provoked
a good deal of complaints by witnesses and a broken down 99% target
would have revealed this type of inquiry as a developing problem.[105]
There is also an argument that significant complaints (i.e. those
that concern the Inspector's quality of reasoning) should be separated
out since these are the closest complaints-based proxy for quality
performance.[106]
68. The primary method of assessing quality in
the Inspectorate should be by re-visiting decisions to check for
errors. The Inspectorate's own internal checking process represents
a rigorous test and the Government should publish targets for
the error-rate discovered. It is clear that the target for 99%
of the Inspectorate's work to be free of justified complaint gives
no measure of the quality of Inspectors' work. Nevertheless, we
recommend that the 99% target is applied separately to at least
the 12 main types of work undertaken by the Inspectorate and the
3 types of procedure (written representations, hearings and inquiries)
for both significant and insignificant justified complaints. Further
suggestions for breaking down the 99% target are made in Annex
I.
69. We recommend that three additional steps be
taken to aid quality control: Inspectors should be required to
make site visits to a sample of developments one year after their
completion. This should enable Inspectors to gain a clear idea
of the implications of their decisions and any possible improvements
in the wording of decisions. We also recommend that a comments
form be distributed to all participants at the start of each inquiry,
to encourage greater feedback on both procedural and substantive
matters. Finally, we recommend that customer surveys are undertaken
in relation to rights of way cases.
38 Ev p51 (HC364-II) Back
39
Ev p26 (HC364-II) Back
40
Ev p41 (HC364-II) Back
41
Ev p55 (HC364-II) Back
42
Ev p77 (HC364-II) Back
43
Ev p76 (HC364-II) Back
44
Ev pp7, 16, 61 (HC364-II) Back
45
Ev pp21, 33, 35 (HC364-II) Back
46
Ev p90 (HC364-II) Back
47
Ev p28 (HC364-II) Back
48
Ev p17 (HC364-II) Back
49
Ev pp9, 59 (HC364-II) Back
50
Ev p45 (HC364-II) Back
51
Q548 Back
52
Planning Inspectorate Journal, 12, Summer 1998, p8 Back
53
Ev p88 (HC364-II); Q32 Back
54
Ev p88 (HC364-II) Back
55
Council on Tribunals, Annual Report 1996/97; Q94 Back
56
Ev p77 (HC364-II) Back
57
Ev p32 (HC364-II) Back
58
Q59, Q64; Ev p20, 81 (HC364-II) Back
59
Ev p65 (HC364-II) Back
60
Ev p87 (HC364-II) Back
61
Q32 Back
62
Ev p47 (HC364-II) Back
63
Ev p97 (HC364-II) Back
64
Ev p33 (HC364-II) Back
65
Q90 Back
66
Q200 Back
67
Ev p37 (HC364-II); Q263 Back
68
Q624 Back
69
Ev p127 (HC364-III) Back
70
Ev p36 (HC364-II); Q526 Back
71
Q208 Back
72
Q538 Back
73
Q207 Back
74
Ev p74 (HC364-II) Back
75
Q82 Back
76
Ev p34 (HC364-II) Back
77
Q497 Back
78
Q507 Back
79
Q426 Back
80
Ev p95 (HC364-II); Q67 Back
81
QQ535-536 Back
82
Press Release from the Department of the Environment, Transport
and the Regions, June 16 Back
83
Ev p27, 60, 93 (HC364-II) Back
84
Ev p93 (HC364-II) Back
85
Ev p59 (HC364-II) Back
86
Q513 and Q406 Back
87
Q572 Back
88
Q88 Back
89
The detailed procedures to implement this recommendation would
need further consideration and our proposal for an independent
complaints board (see paragraph 103) (which would determine which
inquiries should be re-opened) would be integral to the system. Back
90
Advisory Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, Sixth
Report, para 15 Back
91
Ev p81 (HC364-II) Back
92
Q82 Back
93
Ev p8 (HC364-II) Back
94
Ev p60 (HC364-II) Back
95
Q231 Back
96
Q507 Back
97
Q509 and Q565 Back
98
Advisory Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, Sixth
Report, para 24 Back
99
Q215 Back
100
Advisory Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, Sixth
Report, para 13 Back
101 Advisory
Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, Fifth report,
para 8 Back
102
Q498 Back
103
Advisory Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, Sixth
report, para 33 Back
104
Ev p34 (HC364-II) Back
105
QQ381-385 Back
106
Q432 Back